CONE HUNTERS – No Prep Mustang Edition
No prep racing has taken over as one of the most popular and fastest growing segments of the drag racing world. With more and more tracks getting in on the action, and even some… how can I word this… non-traditional drag racing venues throwing events of the non-prepared variety, there’s no denying the huge draw of no prep.
While a large part of the attraction is the outlaw nature of these events, which many fans relate to street racing. However, there’s no denying that a lot of the fans are in the stands to see crashes. Whether we want to admit it or not, human beings as a species are a pretty morbid bunch. What happens when we see a crash, or somebody gets injured? We gasp and look away… and then we look back. It’s in our very nature to be attracted to carnage, as long as it isn’t directly affecting us. The edge-of-control nature of no prep tends to lead to at least one hard crash at each event, with some of them having several.
To bolster my argument, look no farther than bracket racing for the exact opposite effect. There are bracket cars that could compete with Pro Mods through the quarter mile, but you rarely see a bracket car crash, and the stands at just about all of their events are sparse, to put it mildly. Some of that can be attributed to the fact that you casual drag racing fan either doesn’t like or doesn’t understand the handicap start system and the fact that the faster car doesn’t always win, but a lot of it is because they just don’t crash often at all. They rely on consistency more than outright brute horsepower to win rounds, so there’s no need to push the envelope.
Meanwhile, on the pit road at a NASCAR track, these Mustangs have little more than a coating of rubber from the pairs before them to help with traction, and they both struggle to keep the tires hooked up. Eventually the car in the right lane gets out of shape bad enough that he wipes out a couple the cones dividing the lanes, but he manages to reign it in before the car gets completely out of control. If he hadn’t saved it, though, things could have been much, much worse.
